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69-408: Deezer is a French music streaming service founded in 2007 that provides users with access to a vast library of music tracks, podcasts, and radio stations.The company has been a subsidiary of Access Industries since 2016. It offers streaming services in over 180 countries and features a catalog of more than 90 million licensed tracks, making it one of the largest streaming platforms available. Deezer

138-642: A viral dance meme —was boosted to number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 2013 after U.S. YouTube views for music content were added to its methodology. After Spotify's launch, new competing services began to emerge in the North American market, including Beats Music —which was backed by headphone maker Beats Electronics , Microsoft Groove Music Pass (formerly Xbox Music), Amazon Music Unlimited , and Google Play Music All-Access (a branch of

207-478: A $ 300 million round of funding for the smartphone maker Essential Products , investing $ 100 million in the company. Access Industries formed First Access Entertainment in October 2015, which focuses on talent development and representation in music, entertainment, and fashion. Access Industries invested $ 137 million into Opendoor . Access owns a portfolio of hotels and other commercial and residential properties in

276-521: A North American oil and natural gas producer with a portfolio of fields in the United States and Brazil. On August 18, 2017, Access Industries and a consortium of investors agreed to acquire the energy company Calpine Corporation for $ 5.6 billion. Access Industries previously held stakes in a number of companies in the media and telecommunications industries including Ice (Norway), RGE Group (Israel), Channel 10 (Israel), Noga Communications and

345-491: A cent per steam, while streaming services like Spotify tripled in value with no increase in payouts to artists. This is one of the main limitations that comes with music streaming services. Digital distribution of music began to achieve prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s; MP3.com and PeopleSound were early forerunners to later services, offering the ability for musicians (including, especially, independent musicians ) to upload and distribute their songs online in

414-413: A commission for each purchase made. At its launch in 2007, Deezer had not yet secured agreements with major music labels, resulting in a limited catalog. It took over two years for the platform to finalize deals with the four largest record labels, as well as several smaller ones. In its first month of operation, Deezer's website attracted approximately 773,000 visitors, and its popularity grew rapidly over

483-591: A digital music store. In 2019, Beatport , an online music store primarily targeting DJs and electronic music , announced music streaming services known as Beatport Cloud and Beatport Link. The latter is designed to integrate directly with DJ software such as Serato , Rekordbox , Traktor , and its first-party web application Beatport DJ (which launched in 2021); the service targets professional DJs shifting to streaming-based models for their music libraries, as well as amateur DJs. By 2013, on-demand music streaming had begun to displace online music stores as

552-468: A film finance and executive production company established in 2013. Since November 2014, Access Industries has owned a majority stake in DAZN Group Limited , a sports media company which Access formed in 2007 by merging Inform and Premium TV . Perform Group owns the sports website Sporting News and launched the sports streaming video service DAZN in 2016. As of 2019, Access held over 85% of

621-674: A group of investors that included Access Industries. Access invested in Warner Music Group (WMG) in 2004 with various co-investors. After a partial sale of WMG was completed through an IPO on the NYSE in May 2005, Access continued as a significant shareholder with a 2 percent stake prior to 2011. Access acquired WMG for US$ 3.3 billion, including $ 320 million in cash and the assumption of $ 2 billion of WMG debt. Access Industries owns AI Film in London,

690-423: A legal alternative to file sharing platforms such as Napster and Kazaa , the service allowed users to stream songs on-demand using peer-to-peer technology , and would be offered in subscription-based and ad-supported tiers. Ek stated that he wanted to "create a service that was better than piracy and at the same time compensates the music industry." In 2006, a French music streaming website known as Blogmusiq

759-461: A legal streaming service. The site was relaunched as Deezer in August 2007 after reaching an agreement with SACEM , a French organization that manages music copyrights. Under this agreement, Deezer committed to compensating copyright holders through revenue generated from advertisements on the platform. Additionally, Deezer allowed users to download songs streamed on the platform through iTunes , earning

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828-447: A limited number of device promotions. In July 2016, Deezer added the U.S. to the supported country list. As of March 2022, Deezer listed on its website 185 regions where the service was available. Following this expansion, in 2013 Deezer announced partnerships with LG Electronics , Samsung Electronics and Toshiba , which meant Deezer apps were available on smart TV platforms, along with a new brand identity developed in association with

897-449: A minimum of 1,000 listens every year to receive royalties" starting early 2024. Additionally, some have expressed concern about the focus of streaming metrics as the primary source of monetary compensation for musicians and songwriters as streaming fraud gains traction. When music services already face critiques for taking large cuts from artists, some say their business models help record labels profit even more. Streaming services take

966-499: A month, available to users worldwide, the company's first free music streaming service outside France. CEO Dauchez said that Deezer was also looking for a partner to introduce service in the United States, who was "able to provide us with a significant volume of subscribers" to help offset what he called the "unbelievably high" costs of entering the US market. As of December 2012, Deezer had about two million users paying for subscriptions, out of

1035-458: A monthly active user base of about seven million, with 20 million songs in its library. By 2016, according to CEO Dauchez, the company aimed to have five percent of the global music market. In January 2013, Deezer announced its expansion into 22 new countries across Africa, Asia, Brazil, the Middle East, and the United States, bringing its total to 182. However, the US launch has been restricted to

1104-523: A new partnership with Samsung giving Samsung Galaxy S5 users in Europe a free, six months Deezer Premium+ subscription. Samsung and Deezer extended their partnership by offering a six-month, free of charge subscription to Deezer Premium+ for Samsung's Multiroom Wireless Audio Products, including its M5 and M7 line of Multiroom wireless audio speakers. Samsung UK and Deezer offered this promotion again from 2016-2018. In June 2014, Deezer and Google announced that

1173-428: A new three-tier service model. While continuing basic free web streaming, the company also introduced two subscription services: users paying €4.99 monthly received higher audio quality music without ads, and users paying €9.99 monthly gained access to downloadable applications for computers, as well as Android , BlackBerry and iOS mobile devices. In January 2010, the company's CEO and co-founder, Jonathan Benassaya,

1242-457: A partnership with Rhapsody owner RealNetworks to form the joint venture Rhapsody America, and transition Urge subscribers to Rhapsody. Yahoo Music Unlimited was discontinued in July 2008, and Yahoo also directed users to Rhapsody. In the 2010s, online streaming gradually had begun to displace radio airplay as a significant factor in the commercial success of music. Spotify officially launched in

1311-429: A publicly traded company. In June 2023, Deezer announced the launch of an AI-based tool designed to identify and label songs utilizing artificially generated vocal duplicates. This initiative is geared towards protecting the earnings of legitimate artists. In September 2023, it was announced that Deezer and Universal Music Group had struck a deal to change the way royalty payments were split between artists. As part of

1380-593: A service also offering downloads and a music locker). Beats Electronics was later acquired by Apple Inc. , which discontinued Beats Music in 2015 and replaced it with a new Apple Music service. Tidal , a streaming service oriented towards high-fidelity audio, also emerged in 2015, with backing from rapper Jay-Z , and a focus on exclusive content. In October 2015, after initially offering "Music Key"—a subscription bundling Play Music All Access with ad-free viewing of music content on YouTube, Google launched YouTube Red — which extended ad-free access to all videos on

1449-424: A significant pace of growth during the 2010s, overtaking digital downloading as the largest source of revenue in the United States music industry in 2015, and accounting for a majority since 2016. As a result of its ascendance, streaming services (along with streams of music-related content on video sharing platforms ), were incorporated into the methodologies of major record charts ; the " album-equivalent unit "

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1518-412: A subscription music streaming service known as "Urge To Go". Urge was briefly integrated with Windows Media Player as a competitor to Apple 's iTunes and iTunes Store , but was discontinued in 2007 amid cannibalization by Microsoft's Zune platform (which was positioned as a competitor to iPod , and used its own separate DRM and music store that was incompatible with Urge). Viacom then entered into

1587-531: Is available on various devices, including Android , iOS , macOS and others. Deezer was founded in Paris , France , in August 2007 by Daniel Marhely and Jonathan Benassaya. Initially, it started as a independent project called Blogmusik , which allowed users to stream music directly from the web. After facing legal challenges concerning music copyrights, the platform rebranded as Deezer and secured licensing agreements with major record labels, allowing it to operate as

1656-535: Is in seven sectors: biotechnology, entertainment, external funds, global media, strategic equity, technology ventures, and real estate. The group invests in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Latin America. It is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Mill Valley, California . Len Blavatnik founded Access Industries in 1986 as an investment company. He attended Harvard Business School while running

1725-609: Is the case for smaller artists, who take up a large portion of the music industry. Without an extensive fan base, these artists aren't able to make a sufficient amount of money. To increase the diversity and value of their services, music streaming services have sometimes produced or acquired other forms of music-related content besides songs, including music documentaries and concert presentations. Spotify had begun to increasingly make investments into podcasts , buoyed by acquisitions such as sports publication The Ringer and exclusive rights to The Joe Rogan Experience . In

1794-400: The 96th Academy Awards . In 2015, Access Industries launched Access Technology Ventures, a venture and growth technology investment arm focused on pre-IPO " unicorns ". As of 2017, it had investments in companies including Snapchat , Square , Yelp , Alibaba , Rocket Internet , Deezer , Gett , Spotify , Zalando , and DigitalOcean . In August 2017, Access Technology Ventures led

1863-567: The GfK Entertainment charts in Germany also added streaming to its methodology; however, the metric is based on revenues generated from a song's availability on paid platforms only, thus excluding free ad-supported services. Access Industries Access Industries, Inc. is a United States–based privately held multinational investment company which was founded in 1986 by businessman Leonard "Len" Blavatnik . Access Industries' focus

1932-476: The MP3 format. In 1999, MP3.com offered a service known as Beam-It, allowing users to rip and upload music from CDs they owned into a personal library they could stream via their accounts. The service was then the subject of a lawsuit by Universal Music Group , which ultimately ruled that the service constituted the unauthorized distribution of their copyrighted sound recordings. The lawsuit proved detrimental to

2001-623: The Sports Channel (Israel). Access previously owned a majority stake in Amedia , a large Russian film and TV studio known for shows such as Poor Nastya . Amedia gained exclusive rights to premiere HBO content in Russia in July 2017. More recently, the company has invested in major media companies including Warner Music Group and DAZN . In 2021, Reshet 13 , an Israeli free-to-air television channel operated by Reshet Media, received investment from

2070-657: The TensorFlow machine learning library and pretrained models for audio stem extraction. In September 2020, Deezer joined a number of tech companies in the Coalition for App Fairness led by Epic Games to demand better conditions for the inclusion of their apps in the app stores of Apple and Google. In the first quarter of 2021, Deezer held a 2% market share of the music streaming service market. In July 2021, Deezer announced that free account users could use Google Assistant speakers to stream music. On 5 July 2022, Deezer became

2139-752: The dot-com bubble ; in 2005, the service evolved into Yahoo Music Unlimited , a subscription service that allowed songs to be streamed in DRM-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA), and purchased for an additional fee. The social networking service MySpace , and later the video sharing platform YouTube , also became prominent outlets for streaming music, with the latter becoming a particularly popular outlet for music videos and gradually displacing music television . In 2006, Swedish businessman Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon founded Spotify , which first launched in 2008; aiming to create

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2208-626: The "big five" major labels. In 2003, Roxio acquired the assets associated with the former file sharing platform Napster . It was combined with assets from a second acquisition— PressPlay —to form a new service under the Napster brand, which included an online music store and subscription music streaming. Pandora Radio launched in 2005; the service initially allowed users to create and listen to internet radio stations based on categories such as genres, which could then be personalized by giving "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" ratings to songs and artists

2277-407: The 2010s, record charts began to increasingly include listener data from streaming platforms into their methodologies. In March 2012, Billboard launched a new "On-Demand Songs" chart, which was added to the formula of its flagship Hot 100 chart. In January 2013, On-Demand Songs was broadened into " Streaming Songs ", and YouTube views in the United States on videos containing music were added to

2346-903: The French music streaming service. In 2018, Access, alongside a consortium of investors, acquired Calpine Corporation for $ 5.6 billion. In 2018, Access bought the Theatre Royal Haymarket , the third oldest theatre in Britain. In the second half of 2022, Access sold its stake in UC Rusal , thereby divesting of its last major asset in Russia. As of 2024, Access Industries continued to have stakes in companies including Warner Music Group , LyondellBasell, DAZN, Calpine Corporation, A24 , Deezer, and Spotter . Among Access Industries' current holdings are businesses in oil, petrochemicals, power generation, aluminum and biotechnology. Access helped form

2415-622: The Google Chromecast would be supporting Deezer's Android and iPhone apps to allow users to stream music from their phone to their televisions through the Chromecast. Chromecast support became available to Deezer Premium+ users from 25 June 2014 onwards in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and

2484-515: The Hot 100 formula the following month. In 2014, the UK Singles Chart similarly changed its methodology to include streaming. To account for streaming and the decline of album purchases, album charts began to adopt a metric known as " album-equivalent units " (AEUs), which are based on purchases of the album, and how many times individual songs from the album have been purchased or streamed. In 2016,

2553-516: The Nasdaq in 2020. In May 2015, Access Industries launched Access Entertainment , a division headed up by former BBC Television boss Danny Cohen which specialises in investing in the entertainment media sector. After investing in Facebook before its IPO, Access exited its Facebook holdings in late 2015. Since 2016, Access has been the majority owner of online sport-streaming service DAZN , and Deezer ,

2622-515: The Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand within several weeks. On 8 October 2012, Deezer announced that it had received $ 130 million in funding from Access Industries , to be used for further international expansion. Two days later, the company announced that it had expanded into 76 new markets, bringing its worldwide total to 160 countries. On 21 December, Deezer announced a new service level offering two hours of free, ad-supported music streaming

2691-852: The US as of 2023. In 2006, Access Industries took an estimated 70% stake in Top Up TV , a pay TV service in the United Kingdom which sold its subscriber business to Sky in 2013. In 2007, Access Industries purchased a majority stake in the sports media company Perform Group . Also that year, Access became an owner in Acision , a software company focused on messaging systems. Acision was acquired by Comverse in 2015. As of 2010, Access retained ownership in companies such as Icon Film Distribution UK, Perform Group, Top Up TV, Amedia, RGE Group , and Warner Music Group (WMG). On July 20, 2011, Access acquired Warner Music Group for US$ 3.3 billion. WMG listed on

2760-413: The US operations of LyondellBasell Industries filed for bankruptcy. With financing in part from Access Industries, in 2010, LyondellBasell emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a significantly improved financial position. With a value of $ 15 billion, it was subsequently ranked as the world's third-largest chemical company based on net sales . Access Industries repurchased a large stake in

2829-473: The US, Deezer HiFi offers 36 million tracks of 16-Bit/44.1 kHz of FLAC quality music for a $ 19.95 monthly subscription. It is "Only available on selected soundsystems and the Desktop App," and offers downloads to phones at 320 kbit/s. In October 2014, Deezer announced that Bose SoundTouch and SoundLink products would now be supported for Deezer Premium+ service. This partnership will first be rolled out in

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2898-481: The United Kingdom. In September 2014, Deezer announced Deezer Elite, a new exclusive service made for and in partnership with Sonos . Deezer Elite provides CD-quality audio to U.S. users of Sonos Hi-Fi Systems. The service is available worldwide to Sonos users of Deezer only. Deezer Elite "High-Resolution Audio" is lossless CD quality (16bit/44.1 kHz) and not "Hi-Res" or high-resolution audio . Sonos does not support Hi-Res (24/96, 24/192 or similar) streaming. In

2967-779: The United States and then will be available to worldwide users. In October 2014, Deezer announced that Stitcher Radio would be merging into Deezer. By 2015, Deezer users would be able to use Stitcher Radio features within Deezer. In December 2014, Deezer and Pepsi announced a partnership to set up the Midem Artist Accelerator to support managers and labels as they grow the profiles of their artists. In June 2016, it sold Stitcher to E.W. Scripps Company for $ 4.5 million On 7 November 2019, Deezer released Spleeter, an open-source "audio source separation" utility written in Python that uses

3036-443: The United States in 2011, and Billboard began to increasingly include streams into the methodologies of its record charts . In 2012, Psy 's K-pop song " Gangnam Style " became a major international hit, driven primarily by the viral popularity of its music video; "Gangnam Style" would become the first YouTube video to reach one billion views . " Harlem Shake "—a song by trap producer Baauer that had become associated with

3105-528: The company began running ads itself through advertising agency Deezer Media. In October 2008, Deezer secured $ 8.4 million in funding from AGF Private Equity and CM-CIC Capital Prive, bringing total investment in the company to $ 15.8 million. The company introduced mandatory registration in February 2009 to gather more precise data on users, to run more targeted ads, and in November 2009 began running audio ads between songs. On 5 November 2009, Deezer launched

3174-471: The company in 2013. As of 2017, Access owned approximately 18% of LyondellBasell. Since 2013, Access Industries has owned Clal Industries Ltd. (CII), an Israeli industrial investment group. Among CII's main investments are Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises, Hadera Paper, Golf & Co., Clal Biotechnology, and the logistics group Taavura. Also since 2013, Access has owned a significant interest in EP Energy,

3243-422: The company in the second half of 2022. This represented the last of its major assets in Russia. In 2005 Access acquired Basell Polyolefins , a Dutch company specializing in polyolefins . On December 20, 2007, Basell acquired the commodity chemicals company Lyondell for approximately $ 20 billion. The resulting company, LyondellBasell Industries , was impacted by the 2008 financial crisis , and in 2009,

3312-597: The company on the side, graduating with an MBA in 1989. Among its early investments, Access Industries helped form the large aluminum producer SUAL in 1996, which later became part of UC RUSAL . In 1997, Access acquired a 40% stake in the Russian oil company TNK. Half of TNK was sold to BP to form TNK-BP in 2003, in what was the largest-ever foreign investment in a Russian company. In 2013, Rosneft acquired TNK-BP for $ 55 billion, with Access Industries selling its stake and Blavatnik collecting US$ 7 billion for his share of

3381-462: The company, and it was subsequently acquired by UMG's parent company Vivendi Universal , and later sold to CNET (which shut down its music distribution platform). In December 2001, Rhapsody was launched by the startup Listen.com, becoming the first service to offer subscription-based streaming access to a library of music online. Initially limited to content from independent labels such as Naxos , it later reached agreements to stream music from

3450-544: The discontinuation of Groove Music Pass, and directed its users to Spotify. In 2018, YouTube Red rebranded as YouTube Premium, and YouTube concurrently introduced a redesigned YouTube Music platform, along with a separate YouTube Music subscription at a lower price point. The YouTube Music platform can be used without a subscription, but carries video advertising, and does not support background playback on mobile devices. The YouTube Music service eventually replaced Google Play Music entirely in 2020, and Google no longer operates

3519-643: The end of January 2012, to Africa and Southeast Asia by the end of February, and the rest of the world (excluding Japan) by the end of June. Service was not available across the whole of Europe until 15 March 2012, and service launched in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand on 25 April. On 8 June, Deezer announced availability in 35 Latin American countries, though not in Brazil, Cuba, or Venezuela. On 15 August, Deezer announced it would be available in Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan,

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3588-491: The estimated number of users of paid services was 667 million in 2023 . In 2019, streaming services accounted for the majority of music revenue globally for the first time. Music streaming services have faced criticism over the amount of royalties they distribute, including accusations that they do not fairly compensate musicians and songwriters. In 2013, Spotify stated that it paid artists an average of $ 0.007 per stream. Music Week editor Tim Ingham commented that while

3657-411: The figure may "initially seem alarming," he noted: "Unlike buying a CD or download, streaming is not a one-off payment. Hundreds of millions of streams of tracks are happening every day, which quickly multiplies the potential revenues on offer – and is a constant long-term source of income for artists." Amidst those rising number of streams, Spotify has also confirmed that they will require tracks "to get

3726-429: The following years. By May 2008, the service had 2.75 million monthly users, which increased to seven million by December 2009. By 2011, Deezer had obtained the rights to approximately eight million songs. Despite the high traffic, Deezer almost immediately ran into financial problems. During the first half of 2008, the company saw revenue of just 875,000 euros, which was not enough to pay its licensing fees. In July 2008,

3795-524: The group. In May 2015, Access Entertainment was established with the hiring of its president, Danny Cohen, BBC's former director of television. They took a 25% stake in the Bad Wolf international TV firm, and have a financing venture for drama programming with BBC Worldwide /Lookout Point and a development slate deal with House Productions. In April 2017, Access Entertainment purchased James Packer 's ownership share of RatPac Entertainment , which includes

3864-488: The illustrator mcbess. Since then, Deezer has made a number of announcements, including its Developer Reward Scheme, mobile App Studio and API upgrades, a new, exclusive beta version of its mobile app for Android users, and the new Deezer app for Windows 8 . April 2013 also saw Deezer update its iOS app with a new smart caching feature, allowing the app to identify and remember a user's most played tracks, even in areas of poor network coverage. In June 2014, Deezer announced

3933-471: The joint venture, RatPac-Dune Entertainment. In December 2021, Access Entertainment sold their stake in Bad Wolf to Sony Pictures Television . Access Industries has financed several A24 productions, including the 2023 film The Zone of Interest , which was executive-produced by Len Blavatnik and Danny Cohen of Access Industries. The film won the awards for Best International Feature and Best Sound at

4002-501: The large aluminum producer SUAL 1996 with a combination of mergers and acquisitions. In 2007, SUAL merged with RUSAL and the alumina business of Glencore International AG to form UC RUSAL . RUSAL raised $ 2.24 billion in a 2010 IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange , and in 2017 it was the world's largest aluminum producer. Access Industries is no longer a shareholder in UC Rusal , having fully divested of its shares in

4071-637: The main revenue stream of digital music. In 2023, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported that growth in revenue in the music industry had increased by 11.2% compared to the previous year. In 2021—its largest increase in the past 20 years—with paid music streaming services accounting for $ 12.3 billion in revenue ($ 2.2 billion YoY), and ad-supported streaming $ 4.6 billion ($ 1.1 billion YoY). Revenue from music streaming services had more than doubled since 2017, and

4140-492: The new model, streams of songs from professional artists — defined as those who generate at least 1,000 listens a month — will be given double the weight of streams from non-professionals when calculating royalty payments. In November 2023, Deezer announced a new brand identity , changing the app's logo to a stylized purple heart, and rebranding as an "experience services platform". Six skips per hour, no scrubbing (mobile) Music streaming service Streaming services saw

4209-407: The oil venture. Access Industries purchased a large stake in the fashion label Tory Burch in 2004. In 2005, Access acquired Basell Polyolefins which, after Basell's acquisiton of Lyondell in 2007, became LyondellBasell Industries . The transaction was described by Forbes as "the greatest private equity deal of all time." LyondellBasell Industries was the third largest chemical manufacturer in

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4278-534: The platform, and added premium original video content in an effort to compete with services such as Netflix . Concurrently, YouTube introduced YouTube Music , an app dedicated to music content on the platform. In 2016, Rhapsody was renamed Napster ; Rhapsody had acquired Napster in 2011. In 2017, Pandora launched a "Premium" tier, which features an on-demand service more in line with its competitors, while still leveraging its existing recommendation engine and manual curation. In October 2017, Microsoft announced

4347-637: The rate of users signing up for Deezer's premium services went from 6,000 a month to 100,000. By January 2011, 500,000 people were subscribing to the service, and the millionth subscriber mark joined in the middle of 2011, which was half a year ahead of Deezer's expectation. The two companies expanded their partnership in September 2011 to include Orange contract customers in the UK. Also in September, Deezer added Facebook integration to its service, allowing users to send music to one another via that social media service. Deezer

4416-416: The revenue from songs on their platform and send it back to record labels and management companies that own the rights to the songs. These companies then take another cut before sending it to the artists. However, in the past, there were ‘royalty models’ that would allow for artists to get a share of physical albums sold, but with the creation of streaming services, those models have now become obsolete. This

4485-669: The user liked or disliked. The service's recommendation engine, the Music Genome Project , analyzes and determines songs based on various traits. Pandora initially operated within the royalty framework enforced by SoundExchange for internet radio in the United States, resulting in operational limitations: users could not choose individual songs to play on-demand, and could only skip a limited number of songs per-hour (although users could later receive more skips by watching video advertisements). Yahoo! acquired Launch Media and its LaunchCast internet radio platform in 2001 amid

4554-643: Was also developed as an alternative metric for the consumption of albums, to account for digital music and streaming. It has also caused a cultural shift for consumers renting rather than buying music outright. Consumers moving away from traditional physical media towards streaming platforms attributed convenience, variety, and affordability as advantages. On the contrary, streaming has also been criticized by some artists for making them earn less from their music and artistry compared to physical formats, especially with pay-per-stream systems. Some critique that this system makes it so artists get paid as low as one-tenth of

4623-622: Was launched in France in 2007, where it was the market leader as of 2017. On 7 December 2011, Deezer, at the time available only in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, announced plans to expand worldwide during the rest of 2011 and continuing into 2012. According to the company, it planned to make its services available to all of Europe by the end of the year, to the Americas (excluding the United States) by

4692-404: Was replaced as CEO by Axel Dauchez, after fewer than 15,000 of Deezer's 12 million users signed up for its subscription services. In August 2010, mobile operator Orange partnered with Deezer in a deal to include free access to Deezer Premium, the highest tier of Deezer's streaming packages, with some of Orange's telecommunications contracts in France. Almost immediately after the partnership began,

4761-403: Was shut down after copyright complaints by the local royalty agency SACEM . After reaching agreements with SACEM, the site subsequently relaunched as Deezer , which reached seven million users by the end of 2009. Also in 2006, MTV owner Viacom partnered with Microsoft on an online music platform known as Urge , which included a music store, music videos and online radio stations, and

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